Charity:Water is an organisation with a simple message and mandate: to bring clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. I came across it a couple of years ago when a friend of mine ‘donated’ his birthday to the charity, asking for donations to in lieu of the usual socks and man-gifts. I thought it was a brilliant idea and loved the way Charity:Water made it incredibly easy/simple/attractive to ‘give’ your birthday and make a difference. You create a personalised campaign webpage attached to the Charity:Water website (www.charitywater.org) where your friends can donate online, leave you a birthday message and immediately see the progress bar boost further toward it’s monetary goal whilst a box next to that shows you how many people are going to be able to served by what has been donated so far.

So the next birthday I had, I decided to create my own birthday campaign but invite not only my friends and family to contribute, but all my fans around the world.

That was a year ago almost to the day and by the time the campaign wrapped up, YOU AMAZING PEOPLE had given over $50,000 to the clean water cause. (You can see my closed campaign at www.mycharitywater.org/brookefraser .)

Usually the turnaround time between the close of a campaign and the opening of its resulting projects is 18 months or so, but Charity:Water and their partners fast-tracked two projects so that I could report back to you within the 12 month mark.

TIGRAY, ETHIOPIA

So in October, two short months ago, I and 13 others touched down in Mekele, in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, our touring party led by Charity:Water founder Scott Harrison and his wife Vik.

Ethiopia was more beautiful than I’d expected. Ethiopia conjured, for me, images of dry, arid deserts. Instead I found mountains, valleys, vistas, fields, rivers. Certainly much more vast and sweeping than the tightly packed rolling hills of sorghum crops and coffee plantations I became used to in Rwanda.

Our first couple of days involved visiting other birthday campaign projects (those of the friend I mentioned in the intro, actually), visiting communities who were still waiting for clean water, and seeing hand dug and shallow borehole projects currently under construction.

Toward the middle of the week we were to visit the first of two of my birthday campaign projects, fast-tracked especially for our trip. Though the plaques on the projects are named for the campaigns that have funded them (ours are called “Brooke Fraser’s 27th Birthday”, I tried to emphasise to the communities that this project had been given to them not by me, but by many people all around the world who had heard that they needed clean water and had responded. This was met with astonishment, wonder, joy. These communities were amazed by the fact that people who had never met them would care about and, probably more importantly, respond to their needs.

One thing that strikes you in the welcoming ceremonies is that after you are thanked, hugged, patted and plied with gifts (like goats and “I Love You” bread) and gratitude, the people remind you that need still exists. The school needs latrines, the area is so large and people so numerous that one well is not enough. It’s challenging and a reminder that there is much work to do, many more people who need to donate their birthdays!

Continue to Part Two.

#1 TSEFSEF MAI-MINDAL, TIGRAY, ETHIOPIA

SHALLOW BOREHOLE, Project # G11-RE-00648

Tsefsef Mai-Mindal is a village in a remote part of Tigray in Ethiopia. We ‘road surfed’ many hours in 4WDs to reach it, and upon our arrival Scott Harrison (founder of Charity:Water) told us that the people of this community had been so desperate for clean water that they had literally dug out and built the road required in order for the drilling rig to reach the village and be able to drill the well.

Tsefsef Mai-Mindal is home to 650 students and 2500 adults in the village and surrounds. Their former water source was a creek polluted with animal faeces and a parasite that attacks the liver and blood system. Leeches were also a nasty problem for the people of Tsefsef Mai-Mindal, as infant leeches are small enough to make it through the make-shift filters the women would use to filter the water (leaves or the hems of their dresses), and would be swallowed as the dirty water was consumed and then grow inside the throat, growing fat on blood. They would be removed in an excruciating method involving scraping a sharp stick down the back of one’s throat. Not only this, but the creek was seasonal, meaning in the dry season the water dried up completely, meaning no water and a many-hour journey to try and find other sources.

Former water source.

Plaque on completed project.

Clean water flowing from completed well. (I drank it - it was good!)

Now that the well is complete and operational, these issues are a thing of the past. Well water is something like 30 times cleaner than New York city tap water! Children can go to school and stay in school because they’re not getting sick from waterborne diseases or having to miss class to walk many hours try and find water in the dry season. Women are no longer at risk of being attacked or raped on the long walk to finding clean water, because the well is in the heart of the village and secure.

Though this particular community needs more wells to service all the families, which means a bit of a queue at peak times, because this well is a shallow borehole rather than a hand dug well (it is much deeper and has penetrated the groundwater source), it means there is very little likelihood that this well will ever run dry (there will always be enough for everyone) and if it is maintained properly should provide clean water to this community for generations.

MAI TIMKET, TIGRAY, ETHIOPIA

Shallow borehole, project # G11-RE-00646

We were running late and drove many hours to reach Mai Timket, arriving at sunset. I will never forget the sight that greeted us!

The community had been expecting our arrival much earlier, so much of the community had returned home except for a striking welcoming party of about 30 elderly, stately white haired shepherds. It was profoundly humbling to pull up in our fancy SUV meeting this dignified party of patriarchs who had waited all day in the hot sun. I made sure I took off my sunglasses to greet the grandfathers, so they could see my eyes. Sunglasses don’t fly here. They make you seem distant, suspicious, like you have something to hide.

I was quite emotional at this point. The rest of the group had retired to the lodge after the long day, so it was just myself, CW founder Scott Harrison and videographer DDM. I’ll always remember it as a really intimate and special moment – us three white people, the shepherds, a new well and vast nothingness for hundreds of kilometres around us.

The well here was within a day or so of being completed and when we arrived the cement was drying in the sun, protected from roving animals or curious children by bramble branches placed around the project. All that was left after the cement dried the following day was to attach the pump to the well cap, and we had an operational well.

This is another shallow borehole, drilled by a rig into the groundwater, meaning water for many years if not indefinitely. This well serves 750 people who previously had a 90 minute walk (one way) for dirty water, including these 30 or so very charming ‘mature age’ Ethiopian shepherds!

Mai timket water project, within 24 hours of completion.

Plaque for Mai timket project

WHAT’S NEXT…

With the rest of the funds raised by all of you as part of my birthday campaign, Charity:Water estimates they will be able to build a minimum of 6-8 further projects (depending on the depth of the groundwater, therefore whether a well can be hand dug or a drilling rig is required to drill a shallow borehole, which is more expensive).

I will keep you updated with the details and GPS co-ordinates of these projects as their locations are finalised and then the projects completed. I think we’ll also have some video content for you to enjoy after the holiday season has passed.

Thanks for having big, beautiful hearts and giving so generously to see our brothers and sisters in developing nations have access to the same basic necessities we take for granted each day. Truly the best birthday gift I could ever receive! THANK YOU!

To ‘donate’ your own birthday and begin your own birthday campaign, visit www.mycharitywater.org

Water is life.

Merry Christmas and the happiest of holidays to you.

Love,

Brooke

Brooke

Christmas is upon us, and before I scive off on holidays laying out (in SPF30) on anonymous beaches with a fine assortment of my favourite people and their ridiculously yummy babies (Aunty Brooke is always good for a cuddle), I thought I’d share a wee bit of my Christmas trads with you… and you know me, of course it’s going to be food related.

As you know, our Southern Hemisphere Christmas is a summer one, which means an eclectic collection of food… We feast on gorgeous summer salads, roast veges w. balsamic (served hot or cold), and trad. dishes like a good hunk o’ ham. Desserts are whatever people bring – usually things like pavlova, eton mess, something chocolatey, something custardy and occasionally the odd Christmas Cake (though I can’t stand the stuff).

Today I’m sharing with you my favourite favourite favourite ham recipe. It is to. die. for. and so easy that it’s kind of unfair.

I made this at the first Christmas I ‘hosted’ as a married woman and it was a smash hit! It was definitely a big deal for me to leave my family Christmas in NZ (four generations, 30 people) and have my first Christmas with my new family in Australia, but this ham helped me start a tradition of my own. I can’t even remember where I got the recipe, it might have even been out of a supermarket catalogue pullout, but it is now handwritten in my recipe journal and a firm favourite. Enjoy hot at Christmas lunch, then cold over the following days in sandwiches, salads or on it’s own. I even eat the cooled, caramelized glaze with a spoon. So wrong yet so right.

Here it is!

FIG GLAZED HAM

Prep time 20 minutes/Cooking time 40 minutes/Serves 6 (at least)

3-4kg half leg ham (7-9 lbs)
½ cup maple syrup
1 cup fig jam
1 cup macadamia nuts, roughly chopped (I add more)

1. Preheat oven to 160°C (320°F)
Remove rind from ham by easing it off gently with your fingers. Use the tip of a sharp knife to score the layers of fat at 2cm (0.8 inch) intervals.

2. Put syrup and jam in a pan over a medium heat and stir until jam has dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in nuts. Put ham in a deep baking dish, spread syrup miture over the top and bake for 40 minutes until golden. Allow to rest for 10 minutes before carving.

Not the most amazing presentation last year, I’ll admit that, but we were eating on a porch on the sand in a rented house, so an al foil tin from the local grocery store was the best we could do! Still tasted redunkulous.

Also, if you love the ham so much you feel like you need to thank me, please consider doing it in the form of donations to my charitywater campaign.

We’re so close to our $50,000 goal and ten thousand miles (or dollars) away at the same time. Please consider those who don’t have clean water this Christmas! www.mycharitywater.org/brookefraser

Whatever you do, have a safe and merry one. Much Christmas love, Brooke xx

Edible highlights: Ping (pan asian – 102 NW 4th Avenue), Gravy (3957 N. Mississippi Ave – wondrous breakfasts), Stumptown Coffee (3 locations in Portland), Voodoo Doughnuts (various locales).

That’s all we had time for this stop, but next time I’m in town I plan to visit Powell’s Books, eat at Clyde Common (“hearty peasant food”) and loiter in the lobby of Ace Hotel, or even stay there if it’s a special occasion.

Sam Braddles

A universal green room wall… band stickers and lowbrow graffiti

Our good friend Andy documented our evening at the El Rey for us… My favourite picture is the one of me looking at our coffee table book, fresh off the boat. There were countless sleepless nights spent on this thing and even though it arrived six weeks late, that made the first holding of it all the sweeter (to all of you who ordered the book online at our store, the first shipment has gone entirely to fulfilling your orders so they are literally in the mail right now). It comes with a “Making Of Flags” documentary and a 10″ vinyl of exclusive tracks, is super touchable and personal, and I think it’s the coolest thing we’ve ever done. I might do a separate blog post about it featuring some of the pages – will be fun to give you a looksy inside!

I loved playing L.A. again. Sydney is home but work sees me spending more time in Los Angeles at the moment and we have many dear friends who live here, aswell as the band and all the beautiful people who have worked on my last two records with me, so in some ways L.A. will always be our U.S. “hometown” show.

Clothes notes: All Saints jeans, Dimepiece Tee, Topshop cardigan, Kathryn Wilson boots

Clothes notes: As above, but with Topshop feather shoulder crop jacket (so Jonsi right now)